Thursday, June 26, 2014

The chicken breasts seen herein started off as nothing more
than a couple of props for our recently posted “How to Make a Brick Grill”
video, but they came out so well, I decided to show you what I think is a
pretty neat trick.

And let’s face it; there aren’t a lot of great uses for
leftover pickle juice. I did hear recently that some people like to drink this
stuff after jogging, which I found to be quite shocking, since I had no idea people
still jogged.

As you’ll see, I only let mine brine for about 2 hours which
seemed to be enough. I’ve heard that you really only need about one hour per
inch thickness of meat, and that rule of thumb seems to work for me. These
breasts were tender, juicy, and flavorful.

Speaking of flavor, you can probably just go with the
straight pickle juice as a brine, but I hedged my bets with a little extra
salt, sugar, and pepper. Like most brined recipes, the payoff is in the texture
and moisture content, and not necessarily in the taste, but having said that,
these did have a nice little twang.

So, the next time you have nothing left in the pickle jar but
the juice, you now know what to do, and I don’t mean take up jogging. I hope
you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

i'm happy to see this recipe! i have a fried chicken recipe that uses pickle juice as a brine. of course, i like the result but even better is the look on people's faces when you tell them how you did it!

My wife's mad at you,ChefJohn. Here I was watching this while she's sleeping away and you come out with that stupid Poseidon Adventure line. I started laughing and couldn't hardly stop. Naturally, it woke her. I'm not allowed to watch your videos while she's sleeping any more. Hopefully, this brined chicken recipe will get her to rethink that.

Have just made this dish using the brine from a jar of olives, and due to the British weather on a griddle on the stovetop. The result.....the juiciest tenderest chicken breasts ever.....thanks for the tip, I will certainly use this method again hopefully outdoors next time.

I use pickle juice for macaroni, tuna,and egg salads and also deviled eggs. OMG.. soooo fricking tasty.. Gonna soak sliced potatoes in it and bake em in the over for some dill chips... see how that works.. I'm dying to try these chicken breasts....